“The communist system tried by the soviet union did not work and the capitalist system of the Western world is failing due to wealth being sucked up to the top tier and perpetually always less for the middle and none for the lower tiers of society.”

Yes, it’s failing for that reason, but you don’t explain WHY it’s happening for that reason. This is where capitalist macrodynamics come in. As Lenin said, the type of capitalism in the imperialist countries is the highest stage of capitalism. The concentration of wealth is a manifestation of the concentration of capital, which characterizes the current capitalist era. This is one of the defining features of capitalist-imperialism, along with the increasingly central role played by finance capital, the export of capital (as opposed to just goods and services), and the formation of capitalist trading associations.

Lenin, during the New Economic Period in the Soviet Union (in which small capitalists were allowed to operate), was explicit about the dangers of allowing even small private enterprise market relations. The reason is that capitalist modes of thinking, action, organization, and more importantly accumulation dynamics continually intrude into the political-economic relations of society, and these relations need to be overcome and vanquished if socialism and then communism are to be built (that is, if the working class is to be truly emancipated from the virus of capitalist exploitation). Many socialist and even Marxist writers have treated small businesses and capitalists as essentially “no big deal”, arguing that there are bigger fish to fry (namely, the big capitalists who own or control gigantic corporations). But in reality, they are a big deal. It’s certainly true that qualitatively they are not the same as Goldman Sachs, Exxon-Mobil or General Motors; it’s certainly true that they are nowhere near as harmful as the big bourgeoisie, but it is nevertheless still true that capitalist-imperialism has its germ in capitalist relations per se, and that includes small scale private enterprises in a competitive market. What many bourgeois and petty-bourgeois commentators always seem to fail to understand is that in a competition, those who win are in a better position to win again. Hence, accumulation, and the ultimate subordination of everything to that singular drive.

Note how you’re arguing from your own class interests (it’s a fundamental tenet of historical materialism that people will tend to believe what is in their perceived class interests to believe): the “communist system tried by the Soviet Union did not work”, and current monopoly capitalism in the West squeezes you out (or at least this seems to be your gripe: that it denies you your “fair share” of the economic pie owed to you for being a small capitalist). The remedy, in your eyes, is to restructure the economy to ensure that more of the proceeds make their way to “the middle” and to the bottom, but doesn’t even so much as imply the need to eliminate the big bourgeoisie as a class, only to make the system “fairer”. And what, in the end, will this greater fairness lead to? More accumulation, more crass materialism, but with “everyone” partaking in it. In other words, more ecocidal outcomes as well. More aspirations to be part of the “middle class” and to live the “good life”. We’ve seen these sorts of reformist tendencies in the rhetoric of Sanders and others, who cast themselves as “progressives”, even “socialists”, but who cap their demands with some extra taxes here and there on the super rich to help pay for some social programs. That’s the extent of their “socialism”. They are in fact social-imperialists: socialists in name, imperialists in deed. This co-towing to small business is guaranteed to fail as a solution to the problems of the working class. As Richard Wolff has noted: reforms of this sort leave intact the very institutions that have a structural imperative to undo them. And the individuals who lead these institutions have become experts at doing so. The socialist solution is to deprive them of the power to make a come-back, to pull out from under their feet the fertile ground of capitalist market relations.

Some think that the problem is “corporate capitalism” or “crony capitalism” rather than capitalism in and of itself. I beg to differ. 1) Capitalism is built entirely upon the exploitation of the working class, at whatever scale, and at all times; 2) it has objective laws of accumulation, beyond the reach of any individual capitalist to put a stop to for personal or ethical reasons These accumulation dynamics always lead to ever greater concentrations of wealth; 3) the bourgeoisie, while it can and has played a progressive role in social struggle (such as against feudalism in Europe, and in China where the small and national bourgeoisie helped fight against the comprador big-bureaucrat state capitalist bourgeoisie allied with land-lordism and imperialism), its essential characteristic is that it wavers, vacillates and is uncertain, jealously on the lookout for its own narrow and parochial interests. This is especially so in an imperialist country like the United States. In a revolutionary New Democracy phase, small-scale capitalist relations and enterprises may be necessary for a while if we are talking about an oppressed semi-feudal country fighting against imperialism; there, the forces of production are not yet sufficiently powerful to ensure security against incursions from the imperialist states, and some concessions must be made to drawn from the expertise and networks of the small bourgeoisie. Even so, this represents a temporary phase on the road to proper socialist organization. But in an advanced capitalist-imperialist country like the United States, Japan, France or Germany, it would probably not be necessary to retain small-scale capitalist market relations, because the forces of production and the social nature of production in large-scale capitalist enterprises are such that the working class could simply expropriate the bourgeoisie and convert existing big capital to the needs of the working class.

The reasons for the failures of Soviet and Chinese socialism failed is a topic that needs to be honestly and diligently investigated. But that is emphatically not the same as issuing sweeping statements about the “unworkability” of socialism. The history of these socialist experiments provides the international working class with a rich bosom of experience and lessons to draw upon in its historic mission to seize political power for itself; that mission has not dissipated simply because the largest challengers to the capitalist system were defeated. We must not squander these lessons and must not sink back into capitalist assumptions about the “need” for private enterprise. Such platitudes as the latter only serve the imperialist bourgeoisie and put a choke-hold on the possibility for true emancipation.

11 thoughts on “Soviet Communism and Capitalism: a comment casually tossed off by “Sorry, Not Buying It,” over at Off-Guardian . . .”

Very interesting to one who is a latecomer to the finer points of this topic. I have heard it said that what existed in the USSR specifically was in fact State Capitalism. True Socialism never really got off the ground there in the land of the “dictatorship of the Proletariat” from my own observations, it seems to have been all smoke and mirrors. And gunshots to the back of the head.

I think that to characterize as “state Capitalism” what was eventually stabilized into the economic system of the Soviet Union is not too far off the mark.

Two reads that might interest you, both of which I’ve re-posted here, at this blog, one with permission from the author, Mario Sousa, titled, Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union, and that is a small masterpiece in its own right — it speaks to the issue of the “. . . gunshots to the back of the head;” and the other is by Paul Mattick, speaking to the issue of “state capitalism,” and titled, What is Communism?

Thanks for the feedback. I’m always interested in learning more about many things, right now articles are all I can spare the time for considering the range of my interests. These look promising. One day I’ll get around to Solshenytsin who was much vaunted to me in my youth, he seems to have a lot to say about these things.

Something interesting related to this about the times we now live in crossed my path, a purportedly scientific treatise from which all the actual data seems to have been expunged. That this becomes more of a philosophical effort does not detract from its intention I believe, if one has the reason and memory to apply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ponerology

“I have heard it said that what existed in the USSR specifically was in fact State Capitalism. True Socialism never really got off the ground there in the land of the “dictatorship of the Proletariat” from my own observations, it seems to have been all smoke and mirrors. And gunshots to the back of the head.”

The term “state capitalism” can mean different things (please read this for a concise summary of the different senses in which the phrase has been used: http://massline.org/Dictionary/ST.htm#state_capitalism and http://massline.org/Dictionary/ST.htm#state_capitalism_under_socialism). It’s true that the Soviet Union went through a stage of state capitalism, but this stage was LAMENTED by the Bolsheviks. It took place under emergency conditions in which the Bolsheviks had no choice but to allow a certain degree of private enterprise during the New Economic Period. This was always conceived of as a temporary arrangement, and indeed this period was eventually ended. Note also that the proletarian party was still in political control of the country, and that the capitalists were monitored and still subject to the dictatorship of the proletariat. So while it was a step backwards (as openly admitted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks), it was still the correct thing to do in the particular conditions prevailing at the time (just as the treaty with Germany, which placed upon Russia certain humiliating concessions but took Russia out of the imperialist bloodbath of the First World War, was also absolutely the correct action to take).

A similar period ensured in China after the seizure of power in 1949 by Mao and the Communist Party, a period that the revolutionaries also correctly characterized as a type of state capitalism. During this period of New Democracy, capitalist enterprises played a significant role in the economy, but their role was nevertheless restricted, and it was always clear that this would be a temporary period leading onto a properly socialist period. Note again, however, that the revolutionary forces held sway because they controlled state power, were oriented towards socialist construction after the completion of the New Democracy phase, and in fact subsequently did move onto a socialist period of construction (in which the national bourgeoisie was further relegated, and private property became collective property).

But to draw attention to your more general point about whether the USSR was always state capitalist rather than socialist: no, it wasn’t. The USSR was basically a socialist country until the revisionist clique of Khrushchev took power and started to smuggle in capitalist relations in the name of “de-Stalinization”. What characterized the USSR under Lenin and Stalin as socialist? 1) the enterprises were mostly owned by the state on behalf of the working class; 2) capitalist property was expropriated and put into the hands of the state on behalf of the working class; 3) the surplus produced by the enterprises was reinvested by the government into things that the working class needed, rather than, as under capitalism, being ripped off by an alien class. This was done under the principle of socialist planing.

Of course, to many “libertarian socialists” and anarchists, the USSR (and China under Mao) was always a state capitalist “nightmare” and abomination. People like Noam Chomsky, for example, dismiss state socialism (or at least its Soviet and Maoist variants) as essentially a sham that deviates from “true socialism”, which in their minds equates roughly to anarcho-syndicalism (where workers in individual enterprises collectively own and manage these enterprises). State socialism, on the other hand, recognizes that such schemes are petty-bourgeois in outlook, not only because each enterprise would still have to compete in a capitalist market but because without a central coordinating body (i.e. the state and its economic organs), each enterprise could undertake actions that are counter to the collective needs of the working class as a whole. Without planned production undertake and coordinated to meet the collective needs and wants of the working class, one’s claim to “socialism” is tenuous. Libertarian socialists and anarchists display the bourgeois characteristic of impetuosity and refusal to submit to collective discipline. For them, socialism is a one way street: if a society is run along anarcho-syndicalist lines, then it’s “socialist”; otherwise, it’s not. But any true Marxist knows that the road of socialism and communism is fraught with twists and turns, difficulties and set-backs (often obliging one to take a step back in order to be able to take a step forward in the future) and that one’s subjective wishes shouldn’t be mistaken for objective reality. To secure the working class’s hegemony and domination over the bourgeoisie, and to defend it from imperialism, the working class needs to control the state and to organize production in its collective interests. The essence of Marxism is the realization of concrete conditions and the formulation of strategy and tactics to cater to these conditions, so that the working class can march forward in its historic mission to overthrow capitalism. Socialists (or those who call themselves socialists) who would substitute this with adventurism, impetuosity and refusing to aligning their actions with concrete material conditions will only lead the working class to defeat and ruin. Too often, they view socialism as a sort of game (rather than as the deadly serious undertaking that it is), which we can implement over a cup of hot coffee and where all that’s really needed is to set up some co-ops, tinker with a few laws here by voting in a left-wing political party, and presto, we’re at “socialism”. This is pure historical idealism (I’m being somewhat facetious in my caricature of how left-libertarians and anarchists think that we’ll arrive at socialism, of course, but without a concrete revolutionary strategy and a crystal clear appreciation for the need for socialist planning and the role of the proletarian state, this might as well be what they’re selling to the masses).

Of course, this is not to say that the Soviet Union provides an ideal model on which to base socialism (the Soviets, after all, had little to go on in terms of historical experience, and were always going to make mistakes given that they were the first socialist state), but it does provide a very important source of concrete lessons to be learned from (both in terms of what to emulate and what not to emulate in future attempts at socialism. Crucially, we should also study how it was that a new bourgeoisie came to dominate the USSR under Khrushchev, what tendencies under Stalin already existed that helped this to come about, and so on).

Some useful material:

http://www.bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/PoliticalEconomy/FundamentalsOfPoliticalEconomy-Shanghai-1974-English.pdf (an important textbook written by the people within the Communist Party centered around Mao; provides a fascinating and extremely useful consideration of the proper interrelation between central coordination of the overall economy and local initiative, between industry and agriculture, between coastal and inland development, between intellectual and manual labor, the contradiction between the law of value and the law of socialist planning, the transformational character of socialism and how it differs from both capitalism and communism, and many other things that will be vital for the working class to grasp in the successful construction of socialist society in the future).

This is a comment casually tossed by Harley Quin over at 21st Century wire in an excellent article about Duterte who identifies strongly with Hugo Chavez by Andre Vltchek.

Quin says: “Chavez bankrupted his country. Its people live scrabbling for necessities. Perhaps this is what Duterte admires?”

Much as I like the idea of a social democracy, without some degree of capitalist investment, such programs like cooperatives, price controls etc. any country trying to make it as a socialist democracy is going to meet the same fate as Venezuela. Among the Latin American countries adopting such a system, all have failed to one degree or another. People can afford to be socialists, but governments can’t, it isn’t workable. I don’t know of any socialist democratic country that has succeeded, so I really couldn’t have a go back at Harley Quin, much as I would have liked to. Chevez did indeed make things worse for many and his introduction of PQE with the Bolivar currency met with failure. That’s not to say he did not do a great deal to improve the situation regarding social inequality, but in the end, money and moneyed won out – it always does.

I think it was either you or Migarium that told me governments need to create their own opposition because they were unsustainable without it, but the opposition (always present from the outset) came from the people Chavez was trying to help. Popularity is capricious and people tend to bend like seaweed anchored in a strong current, ebbing and flowing with the tide It’s ever been that way. Whilst I applaud the Marxist thinking, mankind has so far, shown itself unwilling to stand firm and resolute in the face of rough seas.

If you can think of any nation which has survived as a totally socialist democracy as opposed to autocracy then I would like to study how they achieved this. I don’t mean State socialism which was adopted by Russia and China – they were communist and are now both capitalist States.I mean a self sustaining democratic socialist country or state.

Socialism is a wonderful animal in theory, but becomes a savage beast when put into practice. A word from the wise is requested in response to a small voice in the wilderness.

I think many of the points you raise are actually addressed by the comment I pilfered from “Sorry, Not Buying It” over at Off-G.

If socialism failed, so has capitalism, because so far, no attempt at revolution ever managed in any country to supplant capitalism in any meaningful way.

So it isn’t “socialism” that’s failed, it’s the attempts to overturn the social relations under which we currently live.

A lot of that had and has to do with the hegemony — in a Cramscian sense, that is to say, the prevalence — of the “capitalist mindset” even among those most brutally exploited by the profit system.

The problem of revolution, of progressive change, exactly as it had been under feudalism and for several hundred years in the course of the transition in Europe to a capitalist way of life, is an insufficient quanta of awareness of what pivotal aspects of our society need to change so as to mitigate the awful barbarism that currently holds sway.

Anyone who imagines that “socialism” failed, whereas “capitalism” carried the day, does not in my opinion begin to understand the implications of that judgement.

Anyway, the issue is too complicated to address in a comment and off the cuff. So I will write a post to adequately address the points you raise and to better develop what I’ve only hinted at in this reply to you.

But you’ll have to give me a few days. I’m in a mood of profound disenchantment with absolutely everything at the moment. I’m not depressed. At least not exactly. But I really am trying to decide if I shouldn’t just limit myself to what falls within the purview of my immediate and personal circumstances going forward, whether, so to speak, to simply let the entire world go hang. (Some of the things that I’ve heard people say along with things I’ve read over the last few days have really given me pause. Either I’m insane or they are. There is no in between. And it strikes me as the kind of insanity that is impervious to reason. What, then, is the point in even trying to engage?)

But to return to the issue at hand, one thing that is certain, is that for the time being we live in a thoroughly capitalist era, one which has the entire world in its grip.

Everything — in social, cultural, economic and political terms — reduces to that most dominant of facts. Profit everywhere is the imperative. Indeed, it’s been the dominant imperative in the world for the better part of the last three hundred years.

It is simply ludicrous to speak of “socialism” as something that somewhere exists or even has existed if only even as an insubstantial shadow. No, the savage beast was never socialist, but always and only capitalist.

While I try to muster the motivation to write a more complete reply to you, Susan, I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to hear this lecture by Michael Parenti: Reflections on the Overthrow of Communism. If I had a transcript of the talk, I would link you to that. Unfortunately, the video is all I’ve got, but Michael is an engaging and lively speaker. I think you will find him germane to your sense of humor and clarity of thought.

Of course, what Parenti calls “communism,” he really intends as an “attempt to transition out of capitalism” that failed for two essential reasons: a consciously instigated counter-revolution by the international capitalist cliques linked up with fifth column reactionary networks, and the weight of objective social relations inherently resistant to change (i.e., established mores and attitudes and the like entrenched in and conditioning the general mindsets of the masses that tend to, in and of themselves, impede progressive change).

Thanks Norman(for both responses) Need to study the links you gave Dominic regarding Sousa and Mattick.
And as for this: “(Some of the things that I’ve heard people say along with things I’ve read over the last few days have really given me pause. Either I’m insane or they are. There is no in between. And it strikes me as the kind of insanity that is impervious to reason. What, then, is the point in even trying to engage?)”
We’ll have no more of that! Yes, I know exactly where you are coming from, I throw my hands up so often these days and want to just give up trying. Neither of us is made that way, we get disheartened and a sense of futility can overtake us, but we pick ourselves up and have at it soon enough. Your mind, as with several other “keyboard warriors” is too good to waste. I know – you’ve opened my mind to so much and you are probably much appreciated on sites like OffG, it shouldn’t go to waste. With your particular skill set, you are better placed to carry impact and enlightenment than so many others, we fight the good fight one convert at a time. A wearying task sometimes, but to walk away is to fail all those who might benefit. Just take some time out and return, ready to pick up when you regain your composure.
I think your vacation with Chantal is way overdue, some time with her, leaving the rest of us behind for a while, will lift your spirits no end.
LOL & best regards, Susan.